


Amor Vincit Omnia

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chocolate Box Exchange 2018, Dark, F/M, Power Imbalance, Stockholm Syndrome, Treat, dungeon fic, human/non-human - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 10:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13634688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: “…true love conquers all,” she finished, with a final dark chuckle. He met her eyes and saw the glint of mania in them. And that was the moment he believed it. Yes, he could end up here for a hundred years—for her to imprison him here wouldn’t lose her a night’s sleep. She’d enjoy it, and she’d think nothing of the fact that he was a prince except to gloat a little harder. Yes, his life, gone in an instant.And she thought that was funny.





	Amor Vincit Omnia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disgruntled_owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntled_owl/gifts).



His life, gone in an instant.

That was what Maleficent showed him. Only he couldn’t quite believe it. He was a prince, with a loving family and a glorious future, one day to marry and rule the kingdom. That was his future. This was a glitch, a break in the plan, but it could be fixed. Sure he was in the dungeon now, but it had only been a couple hours. This was nothing.

Maleficent smirked at him. Her eyes were so wide, wider than any eyes he had seen before. Big eyes he had found beautiful on Briar Rose, but Maleficent’s eyes were hawklike, hideous. Her voice didn’t match her appearance—it was silky, almost sweet in its gloating. She showed horrors and spoke as if in praise, while her eyes devoured the sight of him. He felt as if he were not only chained up but naked before that gaze.

“…true love conquers all,” she finished, with a final dark chuckle. He met her eyes and saw the glint of mania in them. And that was the moment he believed it. Yes, he could end up here for a hundred years—for her to imprison him here wouldn’t lose her a night’s sleep. She’d enjoy it, and she’d think nothing of the fact that he was a prince except to gloat a little harder. Yes, his life, gone in an instant.

And she thought that was funny.

He came to his feet, pulling at the chains. She was only a couple feet away—if he could stretch a little further, he almost didn’t care that he couldn’t get free as long as he could reach her, claw the smile off her face, just make her stop laughing.

But she only laughed harder. She didn’t even bother stepping back. She even stepped closer, and pushed him back onto the seat with her scepter hard against his chest. “What, do my words not please the hero?”

“Let me go.”

“You are sweetly naïve.” Maleficent trailed a fingernail down his cheek, mimicking the path of a tear. “Why are you angry at me? I did not set this story in motion. I only show your fate as it must be.”

“That’s not my fate.”

“Your sweet Aurora’s parents are to blame for insulting me. That was foolish. And Aurora pulled you into all this. But it’s your fault, too, really. You shouldn’t have fallen in love with her. Just because she was beautiful and sang well? Really?” Maleficent shook her head.

She was close enough that Philip could have punched her now, or scratched her or tried to strangle her. He didn’t. Something prevented him from even trying to touch her, although he did not stop her from touching him. Her hand had ghosted down to his neck, where it sat tight like a collar.

“It is too bad for you that you fell in love with her. But I can’t allow you to break the spell. The loophole is the other fairies’ fault. So you see there are many people to blame. You may rage against all of them, if you wish. But ultimately, isn’t it all worth it? You love her.” Maleficent’s voice lilted up, dreamily sardonic. “And someday that love will bear fruit! Even I will not stop it. You will only have to put up with my company for a hundred years first, and a hundred years pass faster than you would think.”

She stood. The raven came to her hand, and she turned to go. “Think things over, Prince Philip. And I’ll try to be a good host.”

“I don’t love her.”

The words came out of his mouth almost accidentally. Maleficent paused mid-stride. She turned around again, eyes even wider than before. “Don’t you? But you told the whole court you loved her! And Aurora is dreadfully in love with you, very very in love with you. Now Prince Philip, surely you cannot deny you love her. You’ll ruin the entire story. It is a beautiful story.”

“I met her once. I liked her. I don’t love her.” Philip glared at Maleficent. “How could I? I barely know her. I thought I might love her someday. But I’m not your…hero, I don’t want to be.” He pulled at the chains. “You’re keeping me here just because you think it’s fun.”

“Oh no, Philip, I would never. I only do what’s necessary for my honor to be redeemed.” Maleficent drew closer. “I like this twist. Come, Philip. If you don’t love her, how will you fix the story? My version was so poetic. Will you ride away from here and leave her to sleep forever? Where’s the happy ending?”

Philip wet his lips and tasted blood—whatever creatures Maleficent employed had hit him squarely in the mouth earlier, not to mention nearly everywhere else.

“You’re lying. You want me to let you go so you can kiss her now, and skip your trials of patience.” Maleficent shook her head. “For shame. A prince and a hero should never lie.” She called her raven again. “We’ll talk later, when you’re willing to be honest.”

* * *

 

Maleficent did not appear again for quite some time. The creatures fed him. He had not known it was possible to live like this, for life to spool out before you with nothing happening, only the passing of time. Maleficent had said she would leave him with his thoughts and that was all he had. He thought of Aurora, and how she wasn’t worth it. He thought of how none of this would have happened if he had stayed away from the cottage and obeyed his father. He thought that maybe Maleficent would have found him eventually anyway, before he could have gotten to Aurora at least. He began to believe what she had said about the inevitability of his fate in at least this much: It was inevitable that he would end up here. Maleficent had been waiting for him since he met Aurora, and possibly since long before. This cell had been waiting for him since the day of his birth.

He hated the cell, and he hated Maleficent. And he waited for her to return. She had said they would speak again. He hoarded up words to tell her of his loathing.

But when she arrived at last, and stood before him with a keen and evaluating gaze, he did not say anything at all. She seemed to have grown taller since he saw her last, or maybe her cape larger. Her presence weighed on him and he blinked, certain his eyes were watering and that if he let down his guard for even a moment he would cry.

“Do you want to talk now, prince?” she said.

His voice rasped. He had spoken to no one but the creatures in days, maybe weeks, and the creatures never responded. “I told you the truth. I do not love her. You should let me go. There is no point in this.”

“The point is you will leave here and you will kiss her,” Maleficent said. “I cannot allow that before its due time. But your presence here should not be a hardship to you, Philip. I do not want to cause you pain.”

Why? Why did she lie to his face, pretend to be kind when she lapped up his suffering? Philip said, “This is fun for you.”

Maleficent said, “You’ll pardon an old woman’s amusements.”

“I don’t love Aurora. I loved Briar Rose. She was someone very different—I did not even know who she was. How can I love Aurora?” His head hurt. “Please, did you bring me anything to eat?”

“You’ll be fed in a couple hours. But it’s worrying that you’re saying such harsh things about your love. You’ll never survive a hundred years at this rate.” Maleficent clicked her tongue and glanced at her raven. “Isn’t that right, my pet?”

The raven cawed.

“My wrists hurt,” Philip said dully. He knew she would not care, but he’d had no one to complain to until now. And they did. The cuffs chafed against them, and the skin had begun to flake and peel. Sores were forming. And even the weight of the chains and cuffs strained at his arms.

“Well, that’s a more reasonable complaint,” Maleficent said. She reached out and touched his wrist with one hand and held the scepter close to it with another. He winced at a sudden flare of pain, and then looked down to see the wrist completely healed. She did the same with the other.

He stared at his wrists, and then at her. “Why…”

“I told you I did not want your stay here to be pain. This is a test of patience, love. Not of endurance of suffering.” Maleficent’s smile seemed gentle, and her eyes wide with charity. “If you are in physical pain, tell my creatures. That can be remedied.”

“Your magic is strong,” he said. He had not seen her do many tricks yet, only the vision and this. This seemed more powerful than the vision.

“I am a good friend to have,” Maleficent said. “One wonders why people would choose to offend me.”

“I did not.”

“You did not,” Maleficent agreed. “So I am your friend, my prince. Sweet prince.” She lifted his chin up, and he did not shudder under her touch this time. Her hands though dry and pale were still warm, warmer than anything else in this godforsaken place. She kissed his forehead, and even then he did not cringe. “Although we are at cross-purposes I will care for you. It is a pity you may well die in my care.”

The first time she’d acknowledged it unlikely he’d truly live a hundred years. “We are not at cross-purposes. I do not…”

“Shh.” She let go of his chin and he forced himself not to lean towards her as she stepped away. “No more talk like this. We will not pretend you do not love Aurora—as friends we cannot lie to each other. I have not lied to you, have I? I have told you everything I will do to you and I have told you why. I am honest.” She was walking away again. “You love Aurora, but I do not blame you for it.”

“Wait!” His voice sounded pathetic even to him.”Please! Wait!”

* * *

 

The next time she came they did not talk about Aurora.

She told him about other concerns—the running of the castle, the fact that apparently a number of less powerful fairies were trying to pick a fight with her, how the neighboring kingdoms were reacting to the royal castle of Aurora being apparently shut down.

For the first time he asked, “How is my family?” Perhaps because for the first time he thought she might know, and answer truthfully.

She grinned mischievously. “Your father is furious. He thinks you’ve run off with some peasant girl and ruined the family name. Oh, the tantrums he throws! He thinks you are far away now and out of his reach.” Eyes glinting, she sat down next to Philip and whispered in his ear, “He is right.”

Philip wanted to shift away, but he also loved her closeness. How his captor chose to act so intimate with him he did not know, but it was as much as he could ask for. “How is the kingdom?”

“Oh, much as always. It has not burned down. Chaos here and there but largely order.” She ruffled his hair. “When you reach my age you see that the world is largely boring. The only things that matter are honor and amusement. Stories are amusing, but honor is vital. What else does a crone like me have left?”

She was hardly a crone. Maybe it was magic but although she didn’t seem exactly youthful, nothing about her was aged either. And without honor (and Philip thought she indeed had none) she still had power, wealth by the size of her castle, magic, the loyalty of her creatures, and a certain strength of character he had never observed in anyone else, domination curved by a light geniality. He did not say this, of course. He said, “What you are doing to me is dishonorable.”

“I am sick of arguing with you about your captivity, Philip. It’s not interesting or pleasant to either of us.” She put a comforting arm around him. “Let us talk of other things. Were our conversations more pleasant, I would visit you more often.”

So from then on when she came to visit he tried to come up with lighter conversation. Hard at first, when all that surrounded him was stone and darkness. There was little for him to talk about. But he could let her talk. He asked her about her past, and she told him stories of the fair folk throughout the ages, their revelry in days past, the wild days when they owned all the earth with no rivalry, and their feuding in days present. The people who had died for displeasing her. At first the stories horrified him. As the days passed he found himself listening to them with little sympathy for her victims, and more interest in seeing how she always ended up on top. Inevitably, irrevocably. Her power had been unstoppable through the ages, and when he thought of it that way he did not feel guilty for having fallen to her himself. He was another character in the stories. His past did not matter, his personality did not matter, only the role he played now. And she promised him that if she told his story in the future she would speak of him kindly.

“You are a hero, after all,” she told him. “And you are a good boy. In better times you would have served me as one of my men, but now no men served me. You have heard how many times humans proved treacherous.”

Yes, he had.

“Now my creatures take care of everything I need. They are trustworthy. But a long time ago, you might have stood by my side. It is a pity.”

He couldn’t tell whether she meant it.

* * *

 

“I don’t love her,” he said again one day, in the middle of conversation. It had been a long time since he had bothered with that protestation. But she was stroking his hair as she once again talked to him about how she really did find his infatuation adorable if misfortunate, and he couldn’t help it.

She looked at him coldly, without her usual amused smile. “Philip.”

“I barely think of her,” he said. “How can I love her?”

“You may not think of her now, because it does not do you any good. But when you are released, you will know you have to play your part. True love is not so easily revoked as you think.”

“I do not love her,” he repeated, and stared into her cold eyes, trying to find a part of her that believed him. And finding nothing, his lips curled up and he began to cry.

Maleficent stepped away, taken aback. It might have been the first time he truly surprised her. Then she sat down beside him and stroked his back. “You held out for a long time, sweet prince. You may cry if you like. Even princes cry sometimes, when I have them in my grasp. But you don’t need to cry about the futility of your love. Aurora would love that you wait for her, and you will be with her someday.”

He gasped. “I don’t—I’m not crying for her. How could I?”

She hushed him.

“I don’t love her. I don’t care about her. I love you.”

Her hand froze on his back.

It was not the first time he had thought the words. Sometimes, in his loneliness, he had thought of how he might please Maleficent when she next came to visit him, or how he might have pleased her if he had known her in some other way. He had dreams about her. His every thought was colored by her. If that was not love, what was? The depth of it made his brief affection for Aurora look childish.

When Maleficent did not respond, he looked up and blinked at her eyes, wide and waiting. He remembered how she had told stories of lovers in the past, and she always cast the man as the hero, the lover who seduced the woman. He leaned forward and kissed her on her cold, hard lips, tasting nothing but the salt of his own tears.

She held his chin with a single thin hand and kissed him back, gently and deliberately. When she pulled away she was smiling.

“Gentle prince, would you give your first kiss to this old woman?”

He coiled the chains up in his hands. “What else can I give you?”

Maleficent laughed, throwing back her head. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Do not think this will convince me to free you. If you claim to be mine, I will not let you go.”

Was that what he had wanted? He wasn’t sure. He only knew that it was unbearable for her to go on speaking as if he were in love with Aurora, when he was not. He was not even slightly in love with Aurora.

In a low voice, she said, “I think you don’t mind that, do you?” She glanced down at his groin. Uncomfortably, he put his hands over the area. It felt improper to respond like that to a kiss from a lady, much less from a sorceress. Maleficent, with her talk of chivalry, would not approve. And the court would have been horrified to see him turned on by something like this. It was wrong but he couldn’t help the way he craved her.

“You want a new role in this story? You want to be my lover instead?” Maleficent cocked her head.”I don’t know how that story would go, prince. It would certainly have a few twists and turns.” She smiled. “Is that what you want?”

He didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted out of this dungeon. He wanted Maleficent to value him instead of mocking him. He wanted to have never met Aurora. He wanted his freedom. He wanted to kiss her again and this time for it to last longer and for Maleficent to tell him he was good and he was hers and not to tell him how soon he would age and die.

He nodded because it seemed like the safest thing to do.

“Very well, Philip. I’ll think it over. You know I’m very fond of you. Perhaps we can move you to a nicer bedroom, and we’ll see where this goes.” The smile dropped off her face. “If after this you still love her, there is worse that I can do to you than a hundred years in this dungeon.”

He did not doubt it, but loving Aurora was as far from him as if it had never been a possibility.

Maleficent turned to the door. Leaving again, without even a second kiss. “We’ll talk. Until then, dream of a brighter future. Though I’m not sure that in this story one would be able to call you a hero.”

**Author's Note:**

> To disgrunled_owl: I've always loved the darkness of that Sleeping Beauty scene in the dungeon, so when I saw someone requesting fic based on it I couldn't resist. This isn't quite what you requested but I hope you like it :)


End file.
